In this sermon, the speaker discusses the unexpected nature of falling into sin. He shares a personal story of an elder from a committed church who recently left his family for a younger woman, highlighting how even those who seem strong in their faith can stumble. The speaker then turns to the life of David as an example, emphasizing that no one would have expected him to fall into sin either. However, David eventually confessed his sin and repented, leading to the restoration of his relationship with God. The sermon concludes with a reminder of the importance of repentance and the possibility of restoration through God's grace.

Sometimes we get into deep conversations and forget to look at the watch, which is what happened to me. I want to read three sections of scripture to you tonight. The first is in the first book of Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 21. 1 Samuel chapter 21 verse 1. David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him and asked, why are you alone? Why is no one with you? David answered Ahimelech the priest, the king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, no one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions. As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what have you to hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find. But the priest answered David, I don't have any ordinary bread to hand, however there is some consecrated bread here, provided the men have kept themselves from women. David replied, indeed women have been kept from us as usual whenever I set out. The men's things are holy even on missions that are not holy, how much more so today. So the priest gave him the consecrated bread since there was no bread there except the bread of the presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away. Now one of Saul's servants was there that day detained before the Lord. He was Doeg the Edomite, Saul's head shepherd. David asked Ahimelech, don't you have a spear or sword here? I haven't brought my sword or any other weapon because the king's business was urgent. The priest replied, the sword of Goliath the Philistine whom you killed in the valley of Elah is here. It is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it, there is no sword here but that one. David said, there is none like it, give it to me. That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, isn't this David the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances? Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he feigned insanity in their presence and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. Achish said to his servants, look at the man, he is insane, why bring him to me? Am I short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house? Then to 2 Samuel, this is a more familiar chapter. 2 Samuel chapter 11, we will read just the first 5 verses and then verses 14 and 15. In the spring at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabah, but David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, isn't this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him and he slept with her. She had purified herself from her uncleanness. Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David saying, I am pregnant. Then verse 14 and 15. In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest, then withdraw from him so that he will be struck down and die. Finally the 56th psalm. Psalm 56. If your bible has a note at the head of the psalm you will see that this psalm was written when the Philistines had seized David in Gath. So it was written sometime around that incident which we read from 1 Samuel chapter 13. Be merciful to me O God for men hotly pursue me. All day long they press their attack. My slenderers pursue me all day long. Many are attacking me in their pride. When I am afraid I will trust in you. In God whose word I praise, in God I trust, I will not be afraid. What can mortal men do to me? All day long they twist my words. They are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps eager to take my life. On no account let them escape. In your anger O God bring down the nations. Record my lament. List my tears on your scroll. Are they not in your record? Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me. In God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, in God I trust, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? I am under vows to you O God. I will present my thank offerings to you. For you have delivered my soul from death and my feet from stumbling. That I may walk before God in the light of life. Let's pray together. Father every time we approach your holy word we realise what a solemn matter it is to open these pages and to know that you the living God speak through your word to our hearts. And we are responsible when we understand your word. Responsible not just to hear it, but to believe it and to obey it. We ask O God that you will speak to us not through the ideas of a man, but through your living word this evening. By your spirit breathe upon your word and bring it to life. Minister it to our lives and to our hearts. That we might glorify your name for Jesus' sake. Amen. In the Acts of the Apostles David is known as a man after God's own heart. And we know that many of the years of David's life were years of tremendous victory and triumph. There were those years of course in the desert, desperate years for David as he was chased from cave to cave, from resting place to resting place by King Saul and his army. He describes his lifestyle in those days as being like a flea in the desert. On another occasion he describes himself as being like a partridge in the wilderness, chased, fleeing from one place of refuge to the next. Yet for most of those years he remained faithful to God. And we know of course that in his years as King of Israel, for many of the years of his kingly reign, he saw victory not only physically on the battlefields of the world, but he saw victory in his own life. As you read then the first book of Samuel, chapter 13, the words, "'How are the mighty fallen?' must come into your mind." It's a very desperate picture indeed. Sorry, not chapter 13, chapter 21, verse 13. It's a very desperate picture indeed in this chapter. And in that thirteenth verse you have David reaching the depths as he feigns insanity in their presence. He chooses to act like a maniac and to such a degree that this man, this great king, this man after God's own heart, is making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. It's hard to believe, isn't it, that it's the same man who is victorious in all those years being chased through the desert. When you get to 2 Samuel, chapter 11, and you see the sin of adultery, you see Uriah being put at the front of the battle, a murderous action by King David. It's hard to believe again that it's the same man who is described as the man. So the lesson I want us to learn from these incidents this evening is the lesson which Paul gives us in one Corinthian chapter verse you all know well, where Paul says, "'If you think you are standing, be careful that you don't fall.'" We're in this room tonight because we are long-termers in Operation Mobilization. I hope you're in the right room. That's who's supposed to be here. You're long-termers in Operation Mobilization. You've been committed for a year or two at least to this organization, Operation Mobilization. This organization is known around the world. You don't have to hide the fact. We're known around the world for discipleship, for a prayer life, for commitment, and so on. I think after my first or second year in OM, I wrote a paper, Spiritual Dangers of Life in Operation Mobilization, and I've seen it produced a number of times over the last few years. Dangers such as this, the danger of having no prayer life in Operation Mobilization. As an organization, we're known for our prayer, and we do pray as an organization. You spend hours in prayer as an organization during these two weeks. But there's a great danger, isn't there, in an organization known for its prayer life and which structures prayer into its program. There's a great danger that you don't have a personal prayer life. There's a great danger in a mission known for its evangelism and for its missionary endeavor. There's a great danger that you lose your own desire for personal evangelism. I've talked to a number of people on OM this year who would openly tell you that they did more evangelism before they came into Operation Mobilization than they've done since they came into Operation Mobilization. There are great spiritual dangers of being connected with an organization like Operation Mobilization. Many of you have been with us now for two or three years. And I just want to bring this little verse to you this evening, and I want to build from the life of David. If you think you are standing, take heed lest you fall. You see, no one in David's day would ever have imagined David falling in the way that he did. If the word got out about these crimes in the land of Israel, I'm sure the shockwaves reverberated throughout the country. Oh, they could well have seen other people falling in this way, but not David, not King David, the man who has gone down in history as the man after God's own heart. Yet so often this is the way, isn't it? It's those whom you least expect to fall, who actually do fall. Hours ago, the church he and I both know in Britain, tremendous church, committed church. Just in the last few days, the elder or one of the elders of that church has just walked out of the church and out of his home and out of his family with a twenty-year-old girl. The last person anybody in that small town would have expected. And very often this is the way. Paul says, if you think you are standing, you're in this well-known organisation, you've been around a few years. If you think you are standing, take heed lest you fall. You know, I find tremendous encouragements as well from the life of David. I find great challenges, but I find great encouragements. David was a man greatly used of God, and the marvellous thing for me is that he was just as much used after the sins, which we've read about this evening, than he was before. Just as much after the sins which he committed than he was before. Because we know that David came back after these dreadful sins in deep repentance. And the 51st Psalm is, I'm sure, a favourite of yours, as it's a favourite of mine. Where David speaks of God's unfailing love towards him. Nathan, the prophet, has just brought the news. David has seen his sin, adultery, murder. He confesses his sin, he repents, and he acknowledges the unfailing love of God. Bound to be true, bound to be true. There's someone in this little congregation this evening, and you are living right now with undisclosed and unconfessed sin in your life. It's almost bound to be the case in a congregation of this size. Sometimes, you know, the devil can so build up these things in our lives that we become afraid to deal with those sins. Afraid to confess them to God. Afraid to really get them dealt with. The tremendous news from the life of David is that God's unfailing love is not conditional upon our obedience and upon our righteousness. It's an amazing thing about the love of God. Centuries ago, in an eternity which is now past, God entered into a covenant to love you. I don't know why, looking at you I'm highly surprised, and I'm sure as you look at me you're highly confused. But God, in an eternity which is now past, covenanted to love me. Psalm 103. An everlasting love is the love with which God loves me. It doesn't matter what happens in my life, in these 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years that he allows me on this globe. He is committed to love me. And he will love me into eternity as well. It doesn't depend upon the fact that I had a quiet time this morning. God's love doesn't go up and down. It's not conditional on anything that I do or anything that I am. He has entered in to this unconditional covenant to love me. I don't know the reason. It's a mysterious reason in the heart and mind of God. When David confesses his sin, he acknowledges the unfailing love of God. Now I don't know the condition of your heart this evening, but I want to say to you that whatever the condition is, God loves you. His love towards you and his love towards me is an unfailing love. And though David fell, he got up. He proved the unfailing love of God and he went on from victory to victory in his life and in his kingly reign. So those two general lessons in our mind, let's go to the passages before us. Two general lessons, remember, from the life of David. If you think you're standing, take heed lest you fall. But if you do fall, or if you are fallen this evening, God's love is unconditional and unfailing. You can stand up and you can confess your sin and you can move on for him once more. With those general lessons in mind, let's look at the passages and let's look at how these two great failures in David's life actually happened. Why did David fall? Well, the key in 1 Samuel chapter 21, the key is in verse 10 and in verse 12. Verse 10, That day David fled from Saul. Verse 12, David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. I want to suggest to you this evening that fear was David's problem. And that's where this dreadful downward spiral into sin and shame began. It began with fear. And this wasn't the first sign of fear in David's life. You can in fact see one earlier sign in the previous chapter, chapter 20 and verse 3. Jonathan, David's great friend, is trying to encourage him. He's saying, I know that you're going to be the king of Israel. And look at David's response. It's a response of despair and fear. He says, there's only a step between me and death. What's happened? Not too long before, the prophet Samuel had come and anointed him with oil. He brought that message, the great prophet of God, he brought that message, you will be king of God's people. David had shown great initial confidence. But something had happened. Something had taken away that confidence and replaced it with fear and with despair. And I want to suggest to you that what happened was this. David was overwhelmed by the circumstances in which he found himself. Those years of being like a flea in the desert, those years of being like a partridge in the wilderness, all the tensions and the struggles and the strain of those years had built up in David's life. And you know, this is how Satan works. It's how Satan worked then, it's how Satan works today. When I was reading these passages earlier, I was reminded of Luke chapter 22 and verse 31. Jesus is speaking to Simon Peter, some of the most tender, lovely verses in the New Testament. He says to Peter, He says, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith might not fail. I often think of those words. Jesus says, I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith might not fail. That is the design and the intention of Satan. He wants to bring about the failure of my faith. He wants to bring about the failure of my confidence in God. And he brought such pressure on David in those wilderness days, in those desert experiences, that in a sense the time came, here in 1 Samuel chapter 21, where David's faith failed. It fell apart. His confidence in God was blown. You see the result. Acting like a madman, with saliva running down his beard. Of course, not only Satan was working through those circumstances at this time. God was also working. God was using those desert, wilderness experiences to make David the kind of man he wanted him to be. He was preparing him for kingship in Israel. That desperately lonely job of being the leader of God's people. In the desert, in the hardness of the wilderness, God's purpose was to prepare David for his ministry as king. Satan's purpose was to destroy and to bring about the failure of David's faith. Whenever you're facing hardship in life, there's always those two designs, isn't there? There's the dual intention. Every struggle you're facing. The fact that I was late here this evening was that I was with a brother who was facing a real personal struggle. And he, in fact, had been with another brother who was facing a real personal struggle. And that brother's personal struggle gave him a struggle, and I got a bit of a struggle after hearing both things. In all of those things, those hard situations of life, there's this dual intention. God is wanting to build us. He's wanting to make us. We know it. And Satan is wanting to destroy us. Well, initially at least, David is gripped by fear. And as with all sin, it's not long before one thing leads to another and it's ever more serious. And so in verse 2 of chapter 21, you've got David involved in deceit and in lies. And by verse 13, you've got this pathetic picture of the madman David. There's the downward spiral. It begins with fear, deceit, lies, and then this desperate picture of verse 13. The fantastic thing here, though, is that the devil's moment of triumph is only a moment. And praise God, in spiritual warfare, one defeat doesn't mean the end of the war, does it? The Apostle Paul could write that he was often knocked down, but he was never destroyed. And I like the Living Bible paraphrase of that. Kenneth Taylor has Paul saying, I'm often knocked down, but I'm never knocked out. That's rather good, isn't it? It's certainly my experience so far. Often knocked down, but by the grace of God, not yet knocked out of the Christian warfare. Here's the prayers of Michelle Quoist. The Prayers of Life is the book, and this is the prayer of a failure. It's meant a lot to me over the years. First of all, the failure prayers. I've fallen, Lord, once more. I can't go on. I'll never succeed. I'm ashamed. I don't dare look at you. And then the Lord answers. Come on, son, look up. Isn't it mainly your vanity that's wounded? If you loved me, you would grieve, but you would trust. So ask my pardon, and get up quickly. You see, it's not falling down, son, that is the worst. It's staying on the ground. Those last few words have really helped me in my Christian life. It's not falling down, son, that's the worst. It's staying on the ground. I want you to turn then to this fascinating 56th Psalm. Fascinating because we now know the circumstances in which it was written. It was written somewhere around the time that this incident in 1 Samuel chapter 21 took place. And here is a psalm which describes, it depicts spiritual warfare. Look at verse 1. Men hotly pursue me. All day long they press their attack. My slanderers pursue me all day long. What's happening to David? He's beginning to slip, isn't he? He's beginning to go down. The circumstances around him are too black. They're driving him down. But then in verse 3 he stops. And he says, when I'm afraid, I'll trust in you. I won't be afraid. You can see him struggling to deal with the fear. But then in verse 5 he begins to slip again. All day long they twist, verse 5. They plot, verse 6. They conspire, they lurk, they watch. In verse 8 he speaks of his lament and his tears. You see, the circumstances, all the opposition, it's building up in his mind. It's driving him down. Then he stops again in verses 10 and 11. And he returns to a position of trust. In God I trust. I will not be afraid. And praise God, the psalm ends in that spirit, in that atmosphere of praise and of victory. Now I'm sure you all know the kind of situation that that psalm describes in your own life. It's something which is my experience regularly. That experience of spiritual battle. Grappling with the circumstances. Almost being overcome by them. And then realizing all that you have in Christ. All the great things that God is doing with you. That's what was happening to David here in 1 Samuel chapter. Though he went so low, he eventually, by the grace of God, won the day. Now let's turn to another incident. The second incident that we wrote. The second great failure in David's life. This time 2 Samuel chapter 11. And again you begin by seeing that one sin leads so quickly to another if it isn't dealt with. First of all you find in verse 1 David is in the wrong place. He's there on this roof when he probably should have been out in the battle. Now the thing which David is known for, if you read his life, the thing that he's known for is how often he would inquire of the Lord. You notice that when you read David's life? He was always stopping and inquiring of the Lord. In fact the great difference, if you want one, the great difference between the life of King David and the life of King Saul is that Saul would go ahead without stopping and inquiring of the Lord. But David is known for this fact that he would never go into battle without inquiring of the Lord. Is it right to go into battle, Lord? For once, I don't think he'd taken that precaution. I think he'd stayed at home without inquiring of the Lord. You see by the time you get to 2 Samuel chapter 11, David has had 17 years of continual victory as the King of Israel. It's just been one victory after another. David was the hero in his nation. And I would suggest that people were suggesting to him, David, everything you touch, it just turns to gold. You never fail. And as so often is the case, David probably couldn't handle success. Stop relying on the Lord. Stop inquiring of the Lord. And so we find him in the wrong place. And he's got a few idle hours. And he doesn't know how to handle inactivity. You see, he's a man of action. He's always at the head of the army. He's an activist. He doesn't know how to handle... OM tends to draw activists. It seems to, to me. And sometimes, you know, we're prone to great mistakes in our Christian lives because we don't know how to handle those unstructured hours. David was in that position. He began to look around. Lust set in. Lust led to adultery and adultery to murder. So, where did this failure begin? Did it begin on the rooftop? Did it begin when he made the decision not to go with the army? No, it began long before then. You have to go back to 2 Samuel chapter 5 to see where this particular failure in David's life began. 2 Samuel chapter 5. In this fifth chapter, David has conquered Jerusalem. And once he's established there, you can see what he does. Chapter 5, verse 13. After he left Hebron, David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem. More sons and daughters were born to him. That's where this adultery and murder began. When he made that decision to take more wives and more concubines after he had defeated in authority in Jerusalem. And we know that by going back to the 17th chapter of Deuteronomy. Here in Deuteronomy chapter 17, from verse 14 to verse 20, God is giving instructions concerning the person who will one day be king of his people. He's laying down specific laws for that person. Look at verse 17. He must not take many wives. David knew that. He knew what we now know as the book of Deuteronomy. He knew that one of the responsibilities of the king of Israel was not to take many wives. Or God says his heart will be led astray. Look at verse 16. He's also told he mustn't acquire great numbers of horses. At the end of verse 17 we're told he mustn't accumulate large amounts of silver or gold. Three great instructions for the man who was to become king. Not too many horses. Don't keep much gold and silver for yourself. And not too many wives. Now David was very, very faithful when it came to the horses. He was very, very faithful when it came to acquiring much silver and gold for himself. But I want to suggest to you this evening that David had a basic weakness in his life. And that was the opposite sex. You know, all of us have weaknesses in our Christian lives, don't we? I know right now as I stand before you the basic weak areas in my Christian life. I could list them for you. And I know that if I put myself in a place of temptation in one or two or three or five actually particular areas in my Christian life I'm in trouble. Because I'm basically weak at some point in my Christian life. And you are as well. And most of you know your weak areas. Part of spiritual victory in Christian warfare is knowing your potential weak areas and building a guard around. We do it as parents, don't we? When our children are growing up one of the very first things we teach them is the danger of the fire. And we don't just say, don't touch. At least in Britain we get a fire guard and we put the fire around the guard. We don't even let the child near. Yet some of us are so foolish when it comes to spiritual things, aren't we? I'll never forget talking to one lad in O.M. who had a problem in the area of pornography. And when he walked to work every day there were two ways he could walk. And he knew it. One way would take him past the pornographic shop. The other way there was no pornographic material in sight. Every day of his life he had to make that decision or five days a week at least. Which way was he going to go to work? Was he going to put a guard around a known weak area or was he going to dabble? I was at a youth conference. I was at a youth conference. Not two or three weeks I suppose before I came across here. And I was speaking about temptation. And one lad, he was about 16 I suppose, had a real problem with smoking which he felt was a terrible evil in his life. He had a real problem with smoking. And he came and told me about this and he said he'd been struggling with it for months in his life and he couldn't get any victory. And I could see a packet of cigarettes in his inside jacket pocket. And I said, you know, what's all the talk about? There's the cigarettes inside your jacket pocket. I said, if you're really serious why don't you give them to me and I'll flush them down the toilet. He said, I want to know I'm going to be victorious. He said, I'm keeping these cigarettes right beside me. And every day I live and I don't smoke one that's another day of victory. The man didn't read his bible did he? You don't keep things which you feel are wrong in your life close to you, you flee from them. You flee from them. You put a guard around known weak areas if you seriously want to be victorious. David had a weakness. He didn't put a guard around it and he fell. Well, how did David handle this second great failure? We saw it was pretty encouraging after his first failure, that tremendous struggle in Psalm 56 and yet he came out victorious. That's great. But you know it's not so good, it's not so good here in 2 Samuel chapter 5. Actually David lives for at least nine months with unconfessed sin in his life. Because it's not till Nathan comes and the baby's already born remember, it's not till Nathan comes that David is willing to recognise and admit his sin and repent of his sin. Nine months with unconfessed sin in his life. It's interesting that David wrote a number of psalms during those nine months. They're the tragic psalms of the book of Psalms. Let me just read you some sentences from some of those psalms. When I kept silent, no confession, my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long. Day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was sapped in the heat of the noonday sun. Testimony of a man living with unconfessed sin in his life. What a tragedy! What a tragedy to spend even one day like that when God has entered into this contract, this covenant to love us and it's unconditional. Why spend even one hour with unconfessed sin in our lives? And know that sapping of our strength and our energy, that crushing of our spiritual bones which David writes about in these psalms. It was Alan Redpath who once said or wrote, the quality of our Christian lives is largely governed by the time lapse between our sin and our confession. It's good that, isn't it? The quality of our Christian lives is largely governed by the time lapse between our sin, keeping short accounts with God. You know, unconfessed sin did something to David. It actually changed David's character. Let me show you that. When Nathan eventually came to talk to David, he told him this very interesting story. Do you remember it? There was a rich man who had a great number of sheep and cattle and there was a poor man who had just one little ewe lamb. Remember the story? One day a traveller came to the rich man's house, wanted a meal. The rich man went out of his own house and he took a ewe lamb from the house of the man who only had five and he sacrificed the lamb of the poor man. As Nathan told David this story, David burned with anger, that's all. He said to Nathan, as surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die. If ever there's an overreaction in the Bible, that must be it. Death for taking your neighbour's lamb. In fact, the Old Testament laid down absolutely what should happen in that situation. The Old Testament law said that the person who did such a thing had to make a fourfold restoration. So in fact, all the rich man had to do was give him four of his own lambs. But David said, no, death! Nothing less than death. You know, that's what unconfessed sin does in our hearts. It makes us hard. It makes us hard. Listen to this statement. Have you observed that when you excuse sin in your own life, you become very, very critical of it in other people? The person who hides an uneasy conscience and a sense of guilt flashes out in anger against the sin of another. Is this why some of us are so merciless with the Christian who has tripped up? Is this why we have no gospel for the believer who falls? It might not be because we are very holy, but because we are so unholy that we condemn the thing in another because we refuse to judge it in our own lives. Beware the barrenness, the hardness, the brittleness of living with unconfessed sin in our lives. It changes your character. Well, of course, I don't want to leave you totally depressed. You're looking pretty depressed, so I'd better cheer you up to finish with. Eventually, Nathan came, didn't he? And David confessed his sin. And it was a truly magnificent confession. He just said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. That's repentance. He didn't give any, you know, circumstances which might make things look better for him. He just said, Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. When you read the 51st Psalm, you can see what happened. He went away from that confession, and the tears began to flow, and David poured out his soul in confession and repentance. And listen to the restoring of this relationship. Listen to it taking place in the 51st Psalm. David cries out, Let me hear joy and gladness again. Let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. As you read that 51st Psalm, you can see nine months of torment being dealt with in a moment. As David once again experiences the unfailing love. And love had not ceased flowing towards David. But David's sin had clouded his receptor. Almost guaranteed. In a congregation of this size, there are some of us in David's position. Unconfessed sin in our lives. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's the same problem that David had. Maybe it's unbelief. But you're knowing that hardness, that brittleness of unconfessed sin. I'd just like to point your eyes and say to you tonight, before you go to bed, before the sun goes down, make sure that all unconfessed sin is dealt with. Confess to God, and if there needs to be restoration on a lateral level with someone you've broken fellowship with, get it put right. That the joy may flow again. That the crushed bones may rejoice with God. And the time lapse between your sin and your concession is a very important part of your spiritual health. Make that time lapse very short. Let's pray together. Maybe just a moment for you to think through the passages we've read together and the lessons we've seen. Maybe a time for one or two of us to deal with unconfessed sin in our lives. To start this new OM year with the slate clean. Father, we want to thank you for your unfailing, unconditional love for each one of us. We can honestly say, Lord, we don't know why you should choose to love us, but we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you that though we fall, you take us by the hand. And as we repent and confess, you put us back on our feet and send us on again in the spiritual warfare. And Lord, I pray for my brothers and sisters now bowed before you, that none of us might go to our beds tonight with that hardness and that bitterness and that brittleness of unconfessed sin in our lives. That we might know that joy and that peace.